Saying he was interested in upholding the “presumption of regularity” for his office, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros on Monday moved to drop charges in an arson case after discovering startling grand jury irregularities by the same prosecutor who handled the “Broadview Six” investigation.

Among the misconduct uncovered by his office, Boutros said in a motion he personally filed Monday, were “ex parte communications” between the prosecutor and grand jurors during a July 17, 2025, session, including comments that she “can prove this case,” that most defendants “aren’t as smart as they think,” and that “the white-collar guys think they are the smartest in the world.”

During the exchange, which was captured on an audio recording but not on any official court-reported transcript, one of the grand jurors could be heard asking the prosecutor, “do they think they are off like scot-free?”

The prosecutor responded, “the ones that testified know they are not,” but that “Alla (Ishkirat) probably does,” according to the motion filed by Boutros. At the end of the discussion, the prosecutor could also be heard referencing media reports about a sprawling fraud case she was handling against former executives of Loretto Hospital.

Boutros does not name the prosecutor in his motion, but the Tribune has previously reported it is Sheri Mecklenburg, the same assistant U.S. attorney who headed the Loretto case and the Broadview Six charges against six Operation Midway Blitz protesters that collapsed in dramatic fashion last month.

In his motion, Boutros asked U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman to dismiss the arson conspiracy charges against Alla Ishkirat, Tawfik Salman, Larry Moneyham and Lonniel Nelson, with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled.

Gettleman granted the motion in a minute order less than two hours later.

It’s the latest case to disintegrate amid a growing crisis in Boutros’ office over the grand jury issues, which first came to light days before the “Broadview Six” trial when U.S. District Judge April Perry read unredacted grand jury transcripts in that case and saw what she described as “shocking” misconduct.

So far, 10 defendants in three separate cases have seen pending criminal charges disintegrate due to the scandal.

In an attempt at damage control, Boutros used much of his nine-page motion Monday to update the court on his efforts to restore confidence in the grand jury process and ensure that his prosecutors “have acted in accordance with law and consistent with the highest ethical standards demanded of those who represent the United States and the people of this district.”

That includes a thorough review of some 100 grand jury cases that Mecklenburg was involved with dating back to 2007, when she joined the office, Boutros said. Most of those cases have long since been resolved, he said, and his office will likely not ask for any relief for defendants who pleaded guilty or found guilty by a jury.

The motion also stated that Boutros has instituted a new policy for when judges request grand jury transcripts. He said his prosecutors have been instructed they may highlight relevant portions for the judge, but never redact anything.

“Under no circumstances are prosecutors to redact what they understand or perceive as the irrelevant portions of the transcripts submitted to the Court for review,” the motion stated.

Boutros also said in the motion that his office proactively obtained the grand jury information in the arson case and handed it over to the defense as part of its ongoing “Remediation Plan.” The decision to drop the indictment was made “independent” of a motion filed by the defense last week asking for the charges to be dismissed, he said.

Boutros listed a series of reasons for dropping the indictment, including “that the government is interested in affirming that the presumption of regularity to which it is entitled under the law should not be shaken.”

In a statement Monday, attorney Christopher Parente, whose firm represents Ishkirat, said that while he appreciates Boutros’ move to dismiss the case, “make no mistake that he and others had advance knowledge of these issues for months and did nothing to ‘remediate’ the problem and instead attempted to redact their way out of trouble.”

“I do not trust those whose first instinct is to hide the truth to design the process of remediating their wrongs.”

Last week, Parente’s law partner, Damon Cheronis, told the Tribune that criminal defense attorneys who regularly practice at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse “feel like Chief Brody” from the movie “Jaws.”

“We underestimated the problem and now we’re gonna need a bigger boat,” he said

Ishkirat and his three co-defendants were indicted in September on charges they conspired to set fire to the Super Giant Grocery, which was owned by Ishkirat’s father, on Chicago’s West Side on May 31, 2018.

The charges were brought after years of starts and stops in an an investigation that began as a fraud case and moved through several different prosecutors. In his motion Monday, Boutros revealed that one of the grand jurors in session last July asked Mecklenburg about the delay.

“What have they been doing for the last four years, these guys, are they free?” the jurors could be heard asking on the audio, according to Boutros’ motion. Mecklenburg could be heard responding “lots of things came up” and “I had other cases … I had trials.”

The alleged conduct in Ishkirat’s case was similar to what occurred Broadview Six grand jury, where, according to transcripts made public earlier this month, Mecklenburg also vouched for the strength of the case, told jurors they “trust” her to only ask for charges against guilty people and asked jurors who rejected the prosecution’s presentation to leave the proceedings.

Mecklenburg also was alleged to have improperly “vouched” for the strength of the evidence in a COVID-19 fraud case tied to the Loretto Hospital investigation. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman had ordered an evidentiary hearing into those allegations, but it was called off after Boutros’ office dismissed all charges against two of the defendants.

In his motion last week, Cheronis said the arson case against Ishkirat should be dismissed with prejudice due to the “serious and pervasive misconduct by the U.S. Attorney’s Office” that has been uncovered.

“While some of the misconduct was nuanced, some more blatant, viewed collectively, it demonstrates a sustained effort to improperly steer, influence, and shape grand jury decision-making rather than present evidence in a neutral and impartial manner allowing for a fair probable cause determination by the grand jury,” Cheronis’ filing stated.

Mecklenburg left the U.S. attorney’s office in February for an assignment with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, however Sen. Dick Durbin relieved her of her duties after the Broadview Six case imploded.

She’s since retained a lawyer, who could not immediately be reached for comment.

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